Thanks Chuck!

My friend Chuck posted a review of Coming of Age in South Branch on Amazon. His writing is so erudite that I had to re-post it here. True, I did promise him an after-dinner mint if he would write a review (as long as he paid for dinner), but the review is more scholarly and flattering than necessary, for which I'm grateful. Also, Chuck's review is filled with an amazing allotment of alliteration, always an admirable accomplishment!

Plain-spoken romance from the American Heartland elucidates both the coming of age and the coming of the aged! October 15, 2014
Mr. Clements' prose deftly describes the specific predicaments of both delirious adolescence and delicious contentment of seasoned lovers, and does it without either the prurience of porn or the pretension of the steroidal prose of the writers' workshops. His eye for detail renders simple realities of lust and love in his soft-edged pictures expressing his characters' passionate anticipations, their fumbling initiations, their persistent tender tutoring of one another in the arts of, ultimately, simply and honestly caring for one another. This has, I admit, deep appeal for me since I am also a child of the Midwest with a youthful detour to a Bay Area in its flower-child Haight-Ashbury full bloom. These illustrated stories are persuasive evidence that, yes, there is indeed a beating heart and a deep soul in our vast flyover states, and that those of us who came up through the springs and summers of love have learned lessons, whether we returned back home again or not. Tilly and Elmer live lustily without embarrassment or shame. They are indeed worthy role models for our grandchildren's navigating the rites of passage as well as for those of us in bodies no longer toned and flexible for whom sex is still a joy and a treasure.